How to Recover Email Deliverability: Step-by-Step Guide To Get Out of Spam

Email deliverability issues due to a damaged sender reputation can cripple your marketing efforts leaving you frustrated as revenue disappears.

The kicker is that most online business owners don't even know they have a deliverability issue and their emails are going to spam.

If you suspect something is wrong, the clearest indicator of an email deliverability issue is low engagement and high spam rates. Open rates under 20%, CTR under 0.5%, and spam above 0.1%.

If this is your situation what can you do to recover email deliverability, get out of spam, and improve revenue?

We're gonna walk you through a step-by-step process to assess your current status, implement technical fixes, improve your content to engage subscribers and improve email deliverability.

We'll also cover list hygiene, sending practices, and ways to warm up your IP. By the end, you'll have a toolkit to help your messages reach their intended destinations and improve your email marketing results.

Assess Your Current Deliverability Status

You suspect you have an email deliverability issue but how do you prove it?

Start by checking if your domain or IP address is listed on any email blacklists, as this can significantly impact your deliverability ^[1].

Analyze your email engagement metrics, such as open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates, to gauge how your audience interacts with your emails ^[3].

Sign up for Google Postmaster Tools to review spam complaints, domain reputation, and delivery errors to identify any red flags that could harm your sender reputation.

Lastly, you can use a tool like GlockApps to do a spam test to confirm emails sent from your domain are landing in spam.

Once you've confirmed your emails are landing in spam you need to execute the following steps to recover your sender reputation.

The Protocol To Recover Email Deliverability & Get Out of Spam

To get your emails out of spam and begin recovering your email deliverability, you first need to do the following things:

1. Authenticate your emails: Verify the legitimacy of your emails by implementing email authentication records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. This helps prevent spoofing and improves your sender's reputation.
2. Optimize your email content: Avoid excessive use of trigger words, special characters, all caps, and too many images. Use plain text, and limit the number of links to prevent spam filters from flagging your emails.
3. Adhere to anti-spam laws: Comply with global anti-spam laws like GDPR, CASL, and CAN-SPAM Act. Don't use deceptive subject lines, include a valid physical address, and honor opt-out requests.
4. Get dedicated IP addresses: Dedicated IPs from your own domain give you more control and customizability. It prevents other senders from affecting your reputation, increasing your chances of reaching the inbox.
5. Clean your email list: Remove invalid, expired, or inactive subscribers from your list. This reduces bounces and spam complaints, improving your sender reputation and email deliverability.
6. Test your emails: Use spam testing tools to analyze your emails for potential issues like trigger words, broken links, or inappropriate visuals. Test your email design, layout, readability, and responsiveness on multiple devices to optimize for engagement.

Steps To Improve Sender Reputation & Re-warmup IPs

Once you've done the above you can execute the following plan to recover sender reputation and warmup your IPs:

• Turn off low engagement flows: Low engagement rates will hold back your efforts to recover your email deliverability. Turn off your email flows like Winback, Cross Sell, and Sunset. We advise limiting the number of active emails in each flow by turning off all emails except for the first two in the funnel.
• Turn off 3rd party marketing apps: If you're using apps to collect email leads disconnect them. You need to be 100% sure of the quality and likelihood the emails are going to engage with your campaigns.
• Encourage replies: Remove all links from your emails and switch to asking for replies from your subscribers. Yes, your placed order rates will drop but replies show Gmail and Yahoo that the email sender represents real people and not scammers.

Step 1:

When re-warming your IPs and repairing domain reputation you should only send emails to subscribers who you know will engage with your campaigns.

This will result in a small list improving open and click-through rates showing email providers like Gmail that your domain can trusted and it is a reputable sender.

Build the following segments from your list to identify these subscribers who are engaged to use in step 2.

Highly Engaged Users Who Have Opened AND Clicked 5 or More Times in The Last 30 Days

Highly Engaged Users Who Have Opened AND Clicked 3 or More Times in The Last 90 Days

Highly Engaged Users Who Have Opened AND Clicked 1 or More Times in The Last 180 Days

Engaged Users Who Have Opened OR Clicked 3 or More Times in The Last 30 Days

Engaged Users Who Have Opened OR Clicked 1 or More Times in The Last 30 Days

Step 2:

Create an email campaign schedule to follow using the engaged segments you've created.

1. Week 1: Send three campaigns to the segment Highly Engaged Users Who Have Opened AND Clicked 5 or More Times in The Last 30 Days. After each send analyze your metrics to verify open and clickthrough rates are high and unsubscribe and spam rates are low.
2. Week 2: If engagement metrics are stable you can widen the next and send three campaigns to the Highly Engaged Users Who Have Opened AND Clicked 3 or More Times in The Last 30 Days.
3. Week 3: Keep an eye on metrics to make sure engagement is high and spam rates low. Send three campaigns to Highly Engaged Users Who Have Opened AND Clicked 1 or More Times in The Last 30 Days.
4. Week 4: Make sure you are asking subscribers to reply to your campaigns and send three campaigns to Engaged Users Who Have Opened OR Clicked 3 or More Times in The Last 30 Days.
5. Week 5: Test your inbox rate with GlockApps spam tester and if all signals are green you can send 3 campaigns to Engaged Users Who Have Opened OR Clicked 1 or More Times in The Last 30 Days.

At the end of this protocol to improve sender reputation and recover email deliverability you'll have a segment of engaged subscribers who've opened or clicked your emails over the last 30 days. This will be your core email marketing segment to use for campaigns.

Finally, you can create a segment of subscribers who have not opened or clicked an email from you in 365 days and delete them from your list. Never engage with users after 365 days of non-engagement.

By following this protocol, you can significantly improve your email deliverability and ensure your messages reach your subscribers' inboxes ^[8].

Understand Email Deliverability Basics

Email deliverability is the likelihood of your email reaching the recipient's inbox without being marked as spam or promotional content ^[9].

It's based on your domain's setup, authentication, and reputation, and if something goes wrong, the burden is on your shoulders to fix it otherwise your email marketing efforts will go to waste.

Difference Between Delivery and Deliverability

Email delivery and deliverability are often used interchangeably, but are distinct concepts.

Delivery indicates whether your emails were received by the subscribers' email provider, while deliverability shows where your message lands if the subscriber does receive it ^[10].

Even with a stellar delivery rate, you can still have deliverability issues if your emails end up in the spam folder.

Key Factors Affecting Deliverability

Several key factors can impact your email deliverability:

1. Sender reputation: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) react negatively to senders with low reputation scores, which range from 0-100. A higher score means better domain reputation and increased chances of reaching the inbox.
2. Email authentication: Proper implementation of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication technologies verifies that an email is sent from a legitimate source, improving deliverability.
3. Content quality and relevance: Avoiding spam trigger words, using clear language, and providing relevant content to your subscribers can prevent spam filters from flagging your emails.
4. Engagement rate: High complaint levels and low open rates indicate poor user feedback, which can negatively affect deliverability.
5. Email list quality: Regularly cleaning your list of invalid or inactive email addresses to reduce bounce rates and maintain good deliverability.

Improve Email Content and Engagement

To boost your email deliverability, focus on creating engaging content that resonates with your subscribers. If your emails are boring and there's no personalization subscribers are more likely to mark your emails as spam.

A/B testing your subject lines and email content allows you to determine what works best for your audience. Test different variations and analyze open rates, click-through rates, and other engagement metrics to optimize your campaigns.

By focusing on personalization, A/B testing, engagement-based segmentation, and list hygiene, you can significantly improve your email content and engagement, ultimately boosting your email deliverability ^[16].

Clean and Validate Your Email List

Regularly remove inactive or disengaged subscribers from your list, as they can harm your sender reputation and deliverability rates.

About 23% of emails in your list may be invalid, so it's essential to get rid of them to boost the open rates and click-through rates (CTR) of your email campaigns ^[17].

Verify email addresses using an email verification service to identify invalid, risky, or mistaken email addresses and typos. AI-powered email verification services like Verifalia can help you reduce your bounce rate and protect your sender reputation.

Add a sunset flow to your email strategy to re-engage inactive subscribers. A sunset flow is an email sequence sent to subscribers who haven't opened your emails for a set amount of time, usually 90 days ^[20].

This automation aims to get your contacts back into the loop by sending targeted emails with clear incentives, updates, and personalized content.

Optimize Email Sending Practices

To enhance your email deliverability, establish consistent sending patterns and manage your email frequency. Spam filters often scrutinize the sending patterns of email addresses ^[21].

Sending a massive volume of emails after long periods of inactivity or irregular sending can trigger suspicions and potentially lead to your emails being flagged as spam.

Consistently sending valuable, non-spammy content to your prospects helps build a positive sender reputation. Sticking to a regular and predictable sending pattern makes you appear more reliable and trustworthy to your prospects and email service providers.

As a result, your email deliverability improves over time when you send a predictable number of emails on a steady schedule.

When it comes to email frequency, it's crucial to keep an appropriate gap between emails. Sending too many emails in a short period can overwhelm your prospects and increase the likelihood of your messages being marked as spam.

Find the right balance that allows you to maintain consistent communication without bombarding your recipients. We recommend three campaigns per week at a minimum.

By implementing an email marketing calendar with 15 campaigns per month you are helping yourself to improve email deliverability and ensure your messages reach your prospects' inboxes successfully.

Now You Know How To Get Out of Spam

Recovering email deliverability is not very difficult once you have a plan like our step-by-step protocol. It just takes time but you can't shortcut the process otherwise you'll be back where you started - in spam.

Assess your current status to implement technical fixes and optimize content, each step has an impact on your overall email performance.

Remember, email deliverability is an ongoing process that requires attention and refinement. Keep your list clean, monitor engagement metrics, and follow sending best practices to maintain a strong sender reputation and keep your emails out of the spam folder.

With these strategies in place, you'll be well-equipped to boost your email marketing results and connect more effectively with your audience.